The disclosure relates generally to the field of multichannel radio systems. Further, the disclosure relates to modular multichannel radio systems that may be used in military applications. Further still, the disclosure relates to a multichannel software radio system in which switch bus architecture is used for improved security and fault tolerance.
In conventional multichannel radio systems, back plane buses are used to communicate between processors on the black side, that is, the side on which any classified information has been encrypted, and the processors on the red side, that is, processors which are handling information that is classified, but has not yet been encrypted. In conventional systems, the red side processors are coupled to a red back plane bus and the black side processors are coupled to a black back plane bus which means that each processor has access to the next and every other processor on its side. Further, all of the processors on the red side may easily access the cryptography that is used to encrypt the traffic for further processing by the black side. Accordingly, conventional systems do not provide substantial isolation among processors on each side, and further, because of the lack of isolation, conventional systems do not provide desired fault tolerance in that if processing for a single waveform on a specific processor should fail, it may be possible that the processor will cause the failure of all of the processors on that bus to fail. Furthermore, in conventional multichannel radio systems, the lack of isolation between red side processors prevents the processing of information that must remain separate for reasons of security.
Accordingly, there is a need for a software radio architecture which includes black side and red side switching and which provides isolation between processors and between channels.
It would be desirable to provide a system and/or method that provides one or more of these or other advantageous features. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned needs.